Friday Mailbag: Another QB change
Vikings fans wanted Jaren Hall, now they have him but what's next?
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By Matthew Coller
Happy Friday, everyone! We have yet another quarterback change to dive into, so let’s get right to it…
Nolan… This is a win win. If he's bad and we lose; yay better draft pick! If he's good and we win; yay bridge qb to let our higher draft pick ease in.
We have definitely reached the point in the season where you are just throwing your hands up and saying, “whatever happens, happens.” It would be pretty incredible if they were able to make the playoffs with four different quarterbacks and with TJ Hockenson out for the year, Bryon Murphy Jr. still out and Jordan Addison banged up (he was limited on Thursday). I’m very much on the side of getting a higher draft pick but I couldn’t be down on a team overcoming this much in order to reach the playoffs. No matter what happens the upside of playing Jaren Hall is getting a nice snapshot of where he stands. I don’t know if there’s a high probability that he becomes the bridge QB unless he’s really, really good in this small sample but at very least they will have a sense for whether they need a (better) veteran backup next year or if Hall is up for that duty.
Adam… Essentially a must-win game for both of us. Because of this, I’m thinking some hijinks are in order. Setting the O/U at 2.5 ‘Trick Plays’.
That reminds me, I forgot to give O’Connell credit for the double reverse. I’ve been saying for a while that he needs to take all the trick plays and burn them in the hottest fire on earth but that pass to Johnny Mundt worked well. It’s a “kitchen sink” game for both teams, which absolutely means there could be some trickery on the way. It also makes me wonder about how the Packers are going to approach this thing on defense. Are they suddenly going to get aggressive because Joe Berry knows that his job is on the line if the Packers defense struggles again? The Vikings have to be ready for a different look on defense than what Green Bay has been doing recently.
Cody… Ben Goessling suggested on his podcast that Jefferson’s and Cousins’ signings could be tied together….What are your thoughts on that?
I’m not sure exactly what “tied together” means. If/when they sign Jefferson to an extension, his cap hits are going to remain manageable for the first couple years, so maybe Ben means that they would extend Kirk through the less expensive years for JJ. If you look at AJ Brown’s contract, his 2023 cap hit is $8.3 million and $12.4 million this year. It isn’t until 2025 that it goes up to $26 million. The Vikings could do the same thing where JJ’s deal is reasonable in terms of cap hits through 2025 and Cousins signs a two-year deal. My thoughts on that are that I fundamentally do not believe they can build a strong enough team to win a Super Bowl with a QB making $35-plus million unless that QB is top five — and even then we are seeing some of the weaknesses of the Kansas City roster bring down Patrick Mahomes. The Vikings could sell their future to give Kirk one or two years of decent cap like the Rams did with Stafford for 2022 and 2023 but that means they absolutely have to win in those two years. You making that bet after six years and one playoff win?
Ben… With everything that has happened this season what grade would you give KOC??
That’s a very hard question. If I only told you that the Vikings had horrific fumble and injury luck and went half the season without their quarterback and were still playing for a playoff spot in Week 17, I’d say the coach did a pretty tremendous job. On a micro level, there’s a lot to nitpick in the way that the QB situation has been handled. Did they not adjust enough to Dobbs or bail on him to early or trust Mullens too much or not play Hall soon enough? I have no idea. I tend to think all those decisions had about the same odds of working so we are always just going to say “they should have done the other thing!” when it goes wrong.
The biggest thing is that the locker room has stayed in tact, KOC hasn’t started doing or saying anything crazy or throwing people under the bus and they have been in every single game that they have lost — which has probably made us more critical in some ways because it has felt so close. We can’t forget that he made a great hire at defensive coordinator and we have seen a lot of players develop for the future. That’s just as important as the final 2023 record. I’m never going to give out an A for a team without a winning record but I’d probably say a B.
I’m sure people will compare them to Cleveland making the playoffs but that team is a juggernaut, very much like the 2017 Vikings. Every other team with backup QBs playing has gone through the same stuff as the Vikings.
Kyle… What’s the best-case scenario for the Vikings in the College Football Playoff? Perhaps Quinn Ewers playing well and leading Texas to the national championship, prompting him to enter the draft and making the QB class deeper?
I’m intrigued by Ewers. Haven’t seen many people talking about him entering the draft but if we are looking at a guy who has the arm talent to make the throws KOC wants, he definitely has that. The best outcome is probably that Michael Penix Jr. shows that he can play against a very talented defense and continue to make those downfield throws on the big stage. I was thinking about how Penix Jr. plays when watching what they did with Mullens last week and wondering if he might be the best fit as a pocket QB who can absolutely sling it.
Jason… How has the number of injuries for this team compared to the league average? It feels like a lot, but there are several qbs not playing right now and we focus on that position so much.
There used to be a website called Man Games Lost that put an exact number on what you are asking but it shut down last year unfortunately. The other way to look at it is by the amount of salary cap space on injured reserve. The Vikings currently have the fourth most cap space on IR but there are teams who have suffered higher totals of injuries. They have nine IR players, whereas the Texans have 18 players on IR. When you lose a quarterback for eight games, you are shaving off at least two or three wins from what you would expect with the starter.
Biggest Fan!… Maybe a bit too soon to weigh in on Hall, but do you have any thoughts on who you think they will keep for a backup next year after trying out Mullens, Dobbs and Hall? None of them seem like starter material at this point.
Hall has a chance to make a case for being QB2 next year. He strikes me as a really diligent and mature quarterback who has the right mentality to be an NFL backup. I get the impression he will be in the NFL for a while. If he struggles they will need to go out and look for someone else. It’s clear that Dobbs is not a good fit for what they want to do and Mullens does not have the arm talent to be trusted even in a small sample. They might need to space some actual dollars to get a real backup, as the Vikings did once upon a time with Case Keenum.
Roger…. Logical move by KOC. We couldn’t weather the # of turnovers that Mullens and Dobbs created. Win/win situation. If we lose two, higher draft pick. Two wins chance at the playoffs
I agree that it’s a totally fair decision. You can’t have the ball flying all over the place. Mullens committed four turnovers but it could have been seven. He got strip sacked twice, he threw a floating pass right into the arms of Brian Branch that was dropped. It was somehow actually worse than it looked. Here’s a crazy stat: Mullens has 23 games in which he’s thrown at least 10 passes and he has at least one interception in 17 of them and multiple interceptions in nine of those 23 games. To put that in context, Kirk Cousins has 147 games of 10+ pass attempts, 77 with one INT and 26 multi-interception games.
You are right about the 0-2 or 2-0 scenarios. The only bad scenario is 1-1. Miss the playoffs and hurt the draft status.
Brian… Jaire Alexander is obviously a clown, but that aside only the NFL could make a coin flip unnecessarily complicated. Why wouldn't the winner of the toss decide who gets the ball first, and the other team automatically gets it in the second half? Under what circumstance would anyone intentionally choose for the other team to get the ball starting both halves?
The only way I could see that making sense is if there was a blizzard. If there was no chance at moving the ball and you were purely playing the field position game, it would be in a team’s favor to kick both times. Otherwise I can’t think of any reason you wouldn’t want the ball in the second half.
Thomas… Do you think KOC will hesitate to pull Hall if he is playing poorly?
He should just let him work it out. If Hall plays bad enough to be pulled they won’t be in a position where Mullens is going to bring them back. Just get him the reps and move along. Maybe if it’s 0-0 in the fourth quarter and he’s struggling. I suppose we have seen that before.
Steve… Am I being overly spiteful if I want the Vikings to beat GB even if it costs them a few draft spots?
It’s a bit of a tricky position because I don’t want to tell anyone to root against their team, especially against the hated rival, but we can’t deny the implications. How can we not point out that going 9-8 and losing in the first round of the playoffs would cost them 10 spots in the draft and possibly a shot at trading up for a QB? This is why constantly playing around in the middle is so difficult to break free from. You feel close and then when it’s finally clear that’s not the case then it’s too late to tank.
We’ll see how it plays out. It already feels like they are going to come out of this year thinking that they are a Kirk away from being right there with the Lions anyway.
Landon… My logical side tells me to cheer for two losses and the likely 10th pick in the draft and a chance at trading up for Jayden Daniels. Not only would I enjoy constantly calling him Jayden McDaniels on accident, but his frame also resembles the lock down Wolves defender. That being said there is something about winning out with Hall and likely going in to Philly against Matt Patricia that gets me intrigued. Having gone to the 2017 NFC Championship Game there is nothing that would bring me greater joy than those fans watching their beloved team lose to a rookie QB.
Playing for a chance in the postseason means a lot to a lot of people within TCO Performance Center and I would never want to disrespect that. I can’t tell Harrison Smith that he should forget about playing one more game because of next year’s draft or that Kevin O’Connell shouldn’t desperately want another whack at winning a playoff game. It would be a remarkable accomplishment to make it despite all they have gone through and I’m not going to downplay it if they do it.
At the same time, the way I think about football is always through the lens of the Super Bowl. Off the top of your head, can you name the last five teams to pull wild card round upsets? There have been six Wild Card teams to win the Super Bowl since I was born and all of them have Hall of Fame quarterbacks except the 2000 Ravens. It doesn’t feel closer to the Super Bowl to slip into the playoffs on the last day. Did it help the Giants in the long run to win over the Vikings last year?
Stephanie… I'm just now tuning in to listen to your emergency pod so maybe you talk about this, but is it logical to consider the last games of the season now as utilitarian preseason games? As in, let's just see what our depth can do and evaluate for next season?
This week is still very much desperation to win mode. The crazy thing about this situation is, despite everything they have gone through, they can still get into the playoffs by beating the Packers and Lions. So they are playing Jaren Hall because they think he gives them the best chance to win and they’ll be pushing every possible button to win. Even if they lose against Green Bay, they won’t be 100% out, so I would guess they would go to Detroit with a similar all-in type approach.
Of course, they have so many guys hurt that you can watch it that way. Usually in my experience Vikings fans try to go into a game with a laid back feeling and then by the first quarter they are throwing a chair at every miscue.
By the way, here is the podcast you speak of…
Jeff… IMO - Kwesi should figure out if it would be possible to bring Russell Wilson in for a couple seasons. Sean Payton was not good at New Orleans after Brees left so I'm not sure Russell is to blame for their issues 100%. He has a marvelous arm and is an extremely accurate passer. He bails out of the pocket too quickly at times. Whatever his faults, he's not going to change now so you have to weigh them against his strengths. In our offense, with out weapons, I think Russ would be Russ again. He's never been seriously injured and likely has 3 or 4 more years left in him in the right situation. Not sure how he would fit in salary-cap wise, but I know it can be done. Thoughts?
Russ definitely looked more like himself this year but I’m not sure I can be talked into it. Is it different than signing Kirk back? I will say that I was surprised to see Wilson’s deep passing numbers are extremely good this year so maybe it’s a better fit than I initially would have thought. It just goes back to the idea of paying a middling QB. You also can’t draft someone if you’re signing Russ because then it’s all-in to win the Super Bowl mode. He wouldn’t sign anywhere where they are trying to split the difference between now and later.
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